When violist Jan Grüning auditioned to join the Ariel Quartet in 2011, socializing came before setting bows on strings.

“I came the night before and we started by having dinner and hanging out and playing board games and starting to get to know each other,” Grüning says. “The next morning we started reading music.

“So it started from a social component. It kind of took the pressure off,” he says. “You see that there’s stuff to talk about, you get along. And then … well, you hope and pray that it musically fits, too.”

Seven years later, there’s no question that Grüning fits in, both socially and musically. He went on to marry Ariel’s cellist Amit Even-Tov, and the couple’s daughter was born this year. The quartet, which plays in Ottawa on Monday, receives rave reviews that frequently cite its intensity — a 2014 New York Times critic referred to the ensemble’s “gift for filling the pristine structures of classicism with fire.”

By the time Grüning came on board, replacing the founding violist who was moving to Japan, the Ariel Quartet had already been together for more than a decade, despite the youthfulness of its members.

The quartet’s violinists Alexandra Kazovsky and Gershon Gerchikov and cellist Amit Even-Tov first met in the late 1990s while attending the Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem. They were scarcely teenagers.

“Their teacher … he gave them pretty amazing pieces,” says Grüning. “The repertoire is so vast and so captivating that he knew very well how to give them pieces that were just out of their reach and have them grow with them. They got hooked, and pretty soon, they say they were skipping school to rehearse.

“The genesis of this quartet is pretty unique,” Grüning says. “They spent all of this time together, every minute of every day except when they were asleep, basically from the age of 12 or 13 on … These are the most formative years, because our identity, it’s so influenced by who we spend time with and how that time is spent. Spending so much time together, that forms a very special kind of core, and a very special relationship that is so strong.

“This deep, deep friendship, which is basically really like family, it’s deeply ingrained in our music. It’s totally inseparable, it melds together at the core, and I think that goes into our sound, into our interpretation.”

That said, Grüning candidly adds that the quartet members, whom he describes as four “very strong and distinct personalities,” aren’t above the occasional heated argument.

“I can’t remember the last time we had a fight where we were really, really screaming at each other, but it’s not like it didn’t happen,” he says. “I think it happens in every good quartet. It happens in every family.

“Fights are mostly born from very, very strong emotional convictions and involvement in a musical issue,” Grüning says. “It’s gotten less, as age and wisdom kick in. But I think actually that’s a good thing, that people need to go through that … Out of the conflict is born a solution which is not his or hers. It’s a solution which truly is a result of overcoming an issue and coming to a larger solution.”

Soon after Grüning joined the quartet, the group moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to become the quartet-in-residence at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, a position that they continue to hold.

In addition to teaching and giving concerts, the quartet is spearheading a community outreach program that sees students perform and speak at seniors homes, hospitals and even prisons.

“It makes what they do relevant,” Grüning says. “I remember very well just standing in my own practice room and practicing scales all day long. Always there was this nagging question, ‘Why am I doing this?’”

The outreach program, he continues, “gives you a much bigger understanding of the difference that music can make in people’s lives.”

The quartet maintains a busy touring schedule, especially when school is out. Last spring, the group gave concerts in Victoria, B.C., Israel, Germany, and in Lunenburg, N.S. In August, the group performs in New York and then Italy.

In Ottawa, the quartet is to play three pieces — Schumann’s String Quartet in F major, Op.41, No. 2, Ravel’s String Quartet in F major and Mendelssohn’s Octet for strings in E flat major, Op. 20.

The Schumann piece, Grüning says, is infrequently heard and is “a lot more difficult to play and to pull off than most of the other repertoire.” But, he says, it’s worth the effort. “It’s such poetic music and it’s so intimate and so directly connecting with the audience that we love playing it,” he says.

In contrast, the Ravel quartet is one of the staples of the repertoire, Grüning says. “It’s an audience-pleaser and it’s a player-pleaser, I think. It’s not always the case that the two overlap.”

For the Mendelssohn piece, Grüning’s group will join with the Rolston String Quartet, the young and prize-winning Canadian ensemble. “I know of them and I’m excited to play with them. It will be fun,” Grüning says.

Although string players have played and read through the Octet “millions of times,” the piece has not become overplayed, Grüning says. “When you come together, it’s always so much fun. It’s like the first time you read it. It’s impressive. And that’s just purely because the piece is so damn good.”

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